The UT Southwestern Simmons Cancer Center has received $22 million in grant money to recruit tenured faculty and new investigators focused on various types of cancers.

The money is part of more than $34 million awarded to the center in August by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, which has financially supported oncology research and prevention programs at institutions across the state for about a decade.

The Harold C. Simmons Cancer Center is one of two institutions in Texas — and 49 in the country — to be designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute, meaning the institution must offer a range of lab, clinical and population-based research.

The projects being funded locally "hold great potential" for improving cancer treatment, Dr. Daniel Podolsky, UT Southwestern's president, said in a news release.

The recent grant awards bring the total that the North Texas center has received since 2009 to more than $270 million. The full list of awards is available on the CPRIT website.

The Simmons cancer center employs 275 people, including doctors, nurses and researchers. Its new director as of Sept. 1, Dr. Carlos Arteaga, is an internationally recognized breast cancer expert who aims to expand the clinical trials available to local cancer patients.

Funding from Texas’ CPRIT program was integral in helping to recruit him from the Vanderbilt- Ingram Cancer Center in Tennessee, according to UT Southwestern.

Faculty and researchers newly recruited to UT Southwestern as part of the August CPRIT awards are expected to begin by 2018. They come to North Texas from notable institutions like the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

They will use the grant money to support salaries for postdoctoral fellows, graduate medical students and laboratory staff, as well as for supplies, and equipment.

Funding will also be used to support research on tumor suppression, melanoma, triple-negative breast cancer and other initiatives.